Richard Law and Peter Brookesmith are long-standing collaborators —they co-authored the critically acclaimed The Fighting Handgun, published by
Arms & Armour Press in 1997, and still in print. Richard also contributed to Peter’s Sniper (St Martin’s Press, 2001): one of the few books on the subject to analyse the psychology of the job.

Both have written for various shooting magazines including Guns Review, Guns and Shooting, Target Gun, and Handgunner. and currently edit and contribute to The Shooter’s Journal.

Both are graduates of the Lethal Force Institute of New Hampshire and consider themselves to be not entirely inexpert shots; they have also devised various competitive shooting courses and instructed both tyros and experienced shots in a wide range shooting disciplines.

Richard Law is a recognized expert witness on questions of firearms law, history and technical matters, and has been secretary of the Shooter’s Rights Association since 1985.

Apart from his books on firearms and their practical applications, Peter Brookesmith has published an eclectic series of titles on subjects ranging through alien abductions, plagues and diseases, and the care, feeding, and psychology of horses.

The Uses, Abuses, and Rational Reform of Firearms Law in the United Kingdom

“Current gun law is a mess—it needs to be simplified, clear, and consistent, to be properly understood by both those using firearms for legitimate purposes and those in charge of enforcing the law.”

So said Keith Vaz MP, announcing the publication of the House of Commons’ Home Affairs Select Committee’s report on firearms law in December 2010. And that is surely true.

But Mr Vaz scarcely scraped the surface of the problem.

The UK’s firearms laws are inconsistent and profoundly illogical. Their administration has turned into a massive bureaucratic job-creation scheme, and is a disgrace to the police service. And if that’s not enough for you, they have been unlawful since 1998, as well as unconstitutional.

With caustic wit, the authors look into the deep background of the law, at the increasingly restrictive, knee-jerk measures of the 20th century, at bizarre prosecutions, and at the rational legal decisions that police and bureaucrats routinely ignore. They show too how every restriction on firearms ownership has resulted in more guns joining the pool of ‘illegal’ unregistered weapons.

Then they deliver their programme for wholesale reform. They argue for disposing of the current prohibitions (such as the pointless ban on handguns), setting up a national firearms agency, and generally making it easier for people to own guns. Most important, they show how a relaxation of British gun laws will actually be simpler, cheaper, and safer than the present self-defeating shambles.